onGamers News

Leaguepedia founder Matthew Gunnin headed to Azubu for site relaunch

by
Rod 'Slasher' Breslau
on March 11, 2014

onGamers has learned that Leaguepedia founder Matthew Gunnin will be taking a position at Azubu for their relaunch of Azubu.tv, and will bring some staff along with him.

In late February, onGamers reported that Azubu is planning a relaunch of Azubu.tv in the upcoming months, on the heels of shutting down their StarCraft 2 team. Sources close to the company tell onGamers that Azubu has been staffing up in the mean time, landing Leaguepedia founder and CEO Matthew Gunnin, who will bring some staff from the site along with him.

Gunnin has confirmed to onGamers of his new position at Azubu, where he will be the Director of Content. Gunnin says he has brought with him 10 people from Leaguepedia, including three on stats, three journalists, two graphic designers, one video editor and the VP of Leaguepedia, Indy Mandhar. Leaguepedia staffers have been seen shooting footage for Azubu at Riot's LCS Super Week.

Gunnin says that while he will be moving to Azubu, he will keep his majority stake in Leaguepedia, and will continue to oversee things at the site. Leaguepedia will transition to solely focus on being a "wiki", with all the other departments moving their content to Azubu.

Leaguepedia was purchased in 2012 for an undisclosed amount of money by Curse, who has owned the site ever since. Curse Vice President Donovan Duncan says support for Leaguepedia will continue on in full.

"Curse has always believed in the raw talent and the fine folks who run LeaguePedia, many of whom are not leaving, and are valued members of the team and will continue to be", Duncan told onGamers. "The value it provides to the community great for our brand and it needed a sponsor, we were really happy to do it. Our entire exec team plays League avidly. Our focus remains on providing the best tools and services to the communities of the biggest and best games. Look for Curse Voice in 2014."

In October, new Azubu CEO Ian Sharpe said they have a plan put in place for upcoming announcements.

“At Azubu we offer seamless game streaming, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Sharpe at the time. “We’re also introducing talented young players, providing insightful commentary and broadening eSports-awareness at the corporate and consumer levels. Many exciting channels and changes will be delivered over the next few months.”

Gunnin and Sharpe have each agreed to do follow-up interviews with onGamers as Azubu's situation develops.

No doubt Azubu offers a much better streaming experience than Twitch, my only problem is the delay for the LCS... it's always too far behind. If they could improve that they'd get many more viewers!

mezzy

Edited by mezzy- March 11, 2014 at 1:14 PM

its hard to say if streaming experience on azubu is really that much better since you cant compare a plattform with 300 and one with 300k viewers.

i dont think azubu will always be able to get a bigger slice of the streaming-cake then maybe 5% overall. Its just nothing new so why would i switch from twitch.tv to azubu.tv when 95% of my favorite streams are on twitch? remember clg or sk streams on azubu? even hotshot and ocelote had huge fanbases azubustreams just got 10% of viewers compared to own3d beforehand.